Over the course of his two terms in office, President Donald Trump and his administrations have dramatically expanded the federal government’s use of social media vetting for travelers and applicants for visas and immigration benefits. Millions of people are now required to disclose their social media handles to, and in some cases make their accounts public for, the federal agencies that decide whether they may enter the country, remain here, or receive immigration benefits. Just last week, for example, the conservative media outlet Daily Signal reported the Trump administration planned to start requiring foreign journalists applying for U.S. visas to make their social media accounts public for government review. Despite the impact of these requirements on First Amendment-protected speech and association, there is scant information available to the public about their efficacy or the evidence supporting their adoption.
During the first Trump administration, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is responsible for reviewing federal agencies’ proposed collections of information from the public, approved a State Department proposal to institute a social media disclosure requirement for visa applicants. Then, during the Biden administration, OIRA rejected two proposed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) social media disclosure requirements, one that would have mandated disclosure of social media information on a number of immigration forms and another that would have required travelers under the Visa Waiver Program to disclose their social media information. During the second Trump administration, however, OIRA reversed course and approved a social media disclosure requirement on immigration forms that was nearly identical to the one it had rejected under the Biden administration.
Social media platforms are important forums for expressive activity, facilitating political and ideological exchange across cultures and borders. And because user accounts contain vast troves of sensitive information, including about users’ political and religious beliefs and activities, social media disclosure requirements chill protected speech and association. They are especially harmful to racial and religious minorities and to people whose political views have made them targets of discrimination or scrutiny within the U.S. immigration system. When people are aware that their social media information is subject to review, they may be more reluctant to post, associate with others online, and engage with political dialogue and debate for fear that their speech might jeopardize their visa or immigration benefits applications. These policies don’t just affect applicants; when visa and immigrant benefit applicants refrain from engaging online or delete their old posts, anyone who would have benefited from participating in or learning from those discussions and debates is harmed. Indeed, by chilling the speech and association of individuals subject to social media disclosure requirements, the U.S. government is depriving everyone of opportunities to engage in a free and open exchange of ideas and perspectives.
Despite the breadth of the government’s social media disclosure requirements and their consequences for First Amendment–protected speech and association, the public has almost no insight into why the requirements were approved or denied, what evidence supported the decisions, or why officials reversed course.
To answer these questions, the Knight Institute, where I work, filed a FOIA lawsuit today against the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and its subagency, OIRA. Over the past two years, the Institute has submitted three FOIA requests seeking information about OIRA’s evaluation of proposed social media disclosure policies and has received no records in response.
In one of its requests, the Institute sought records related to OIRA’s 2019 approval, under the first Trump administration, of a State Department policy requiring nearly 15 million visa applicants each year to disclose their social media identifiers.
In another FOIA request, the Institute sought records related to two OIRA decisions, under the Biden administration, rejecting proposed social media disclosure requirements. The first was OIRA’s 2021 rejection of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposal to add a social media disclosure requirement to 12 immigration forms, including applications for asylum, naturalization, and refugee classification. OIRA concluded that DHS had “not adequately demonstrated the practical utility of collecting this information,” and stated that if the agency wanted to “submit a similar proposal in the future, it must demonstrate the practical utility of collecting [this information] and demonstrate that such utility outweighs the costs—both monetary and social—of doing so.” The second decision was OIRA’s 2023 rejection of a DHS proposal to require travelers seeking to enter the country through the Visa Waiver Program to disclose their social media handles. OIRA provided no explanation for this decision.
And finally, the Institute sought records related to OIRA’s approval, in February of this year, of a DHS policy that was nearly identical to the DHS proposal OIRA had rejected under the Biden administration five years earlier. OIRA offered no public explanation for its change in position.
These records are important because the government’s public rationales for implementing such far-reaching and invasive social media-vetting policies range from murky to explicitly censorial. In 2019, the State Department said that collecting social media identifiers from visa applicants would “strengthen [the] process for vetting . . . applicants and confirming their identity.” But the government has failed to publicly identify evidence showing that the policy would accomplish its stated goal. Indeed, another FOIA lawsuit brought by the Knight Institute surfaced an email from an intelligence official within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledging that social media identifiers “add no value” to the visa screening process. And in rejecting a proposed DHS social media disclosure policy in 2021, OIRA concluded that DHS “ha[d] not adequately demonstrated the practical utility of collecting [social media] information.”
Recently, DHS offered a more chilling justification for its use of social media vetting, stating that it had begun “vetting for anti-Americanism.” DHS acknowledged that social media content reflecting disfavored views would count as “a negative factor” in its adjudication of immigration benefit requests. This policy is consistent with recent executive orders asserting that “the United States must be vigilant” in keeping out anyone who bears “hostile attitudes” toward its “citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” These directives make clear that the administration is using social media vetting to exclude and punish certain viewpoints and ideologies.
Social media disclosure requirements implicate fundamental First Amendment rights, and the public has a right to know why they were implemented. The Institute’s lawsuit seeks records that may help evaluate the efficacy and legitimacy of the government’s social media vetting policies, explain OIRA’s reversal, and provide the public with the information it needs to guard against invasive government practices that chill protected speech and association.
